The Flex Seal Family of Products is the industry leader in the world of sealants, with a line of adhesive bonding products based upon the idea of liquid rubber. Its Founder, Inventor, Spokesman and CEO, Phil Swift, holds a unique position in American culture as a head of a company who is also a legitimate internet meme sensation, with over 6,600,000 followers across our platforms tracking both Phil and Flex Seal’s every online move.
Because of counterfeits and watchful competition, each new product is kept under close wraps until its launch date. In the spot, Phil rips the chicken wire off a chicken coop, coats it with Flex Paste and then fashions a boat out of it, proving its waterproof sealing power.
The objective behind the Flex Paste launch campaign was to create buzz around something new and exciting happening in the world of Phil and Flex Seal while keeping the element of mystery intact. The goal was to get people talking, or in this case, squawking, about what the heck a chicken has to do with Flex Seal, five weeks before the actual unveiling of the Flex Paste national spot. The idea was hatched, and a year later, the fans are still squawking about it.
For this launch, we wanted to immerse our fans in an interactive and engaging user experience across our social platforms. The objective was to increase brand awareness by focusing on content that not only would entertain our fans but would also educate our customers about our revolutionary new product.
To achieve our goals of increasing brand awareness and expectations for future product launches, our in-house creative team set out to design content that would address each audience segment and generate interest while keeping the mystery of the product from hatching publicly too soon.
The first clue appeared on New Year’s Day 2020 with the line, “Get A Flex Start.” The visuals invoked a farm-fresh morning, beginning of a new day type feel. The zeros in 2020 appeared as eggs. The chicken reference was subtle, first revealing itself in a silhouette.
Little by little, throughout the pre-launch, we continued to release more chicken-centric content across all platforms, including an animated egg that cracked a bit more each day with a coming soon message. When the egg finally cracked, (well, actually exploded), it revealed our “Action movie” poster featuring a dramatic visual of Phil in a henhouse with the chicken on his shoulder and the line, “It’s Gonna Be Clucking Huge.”
Over 30,000 unique visitors populated our website to purchase the limited-edition poster, which sold out completely. And in total, our pre-launch posts across all our social media platforms received over 11,600,000 impressions.
For the premiere, we embraced our stratified demographics and targeted influencers as well as media outlets that best serve our wildly different audience segments. Striking the right balance was crucial and by enlisting popular influencers, celebrities, news outlets, and fans, we were able to reach over 2,700,000 additional followers via our premiere packages being shared on their platforms. Our customized packages were filled with interactive elements that reflected our most engaging launch content, including an easter egg, mini farm animals, popcorn for the live show, and more brand swag than a Flex Fan could ever hope for! It was important that our exclusive boxes became as much of a spectacle as the live premiere our viewers were about to watch. The audience response was significant with one influencer’s premiere package post garnering over 30,000 impressions alone. All of this culminated in a successful Live commercial launch on YouTube where Phil Swift interacted in real-time with thousands of fans who tuned in to stream with us and live chat with him.
While our pre-launch focused on building excitement and mystery, our post-launch focused on education and exceptional user experience. To achieve this, we created a series of videos titled, “Flex Ed 101.” We designed an interactive blog packed with tips, tricks, and videos. By disseminating our education pieces across all our digital platforms, we were able to reach over 29,000,000 viewers. Our top performing GIFs alone averaged over 1,000,000 views.
By modifying our creatives to address each platform, we maximized interactive engagement, boosted brand awareness and provided entertaining and informative product education all while increasing our total impressions successfully. Since the premiere, our commercial has racked up over 15,000,000 views, while our supporting content has registered over 153,000,000 total impressions. Tier-1 outlets like MSN, Yahoo, and Business Insider all featured our newest product.
